Drew Carey has been a near-constant presence on our TV screens for 30 years, first with nine seasons of The Drew Carey Show, and then with The Price is Right, which Carey has hosted since 2007. But to hear the actor and comedian tell it, he still approaches every job with the belief that “nothing’s guaranteed.” While working on The Drew Carey Show from 1995 to 2004 with co-creator Bruce Helford, Carey recalls, “We weren’t pie in the sky about what the TV business was. We knew we had to work and be funny and come up with the goods every week, or we were going to get canceled.”

With the long-awaited complete DVD box set of The Drew Carey Show finally released (previously, only the show’s first season was available), Carey and Helford spoke to ReMIND about the show’s early days, how Carey and another one of the show’s stars were “really bad at auditioning,” and feeling that “any day I could be fired. I could be let go.”